March 2019

Fuzz Balls

Friday was such a beautiful day I decided to head out and do some evening fishing. Do you see who was waiting for me when I got to the stream? Maybe enlarging the pic a bit will help.

Unfortunately, because I brought a camera that is good for underwater close-ups of fish and not for pictures of wildlife further away, this is not a very good shot. It does not even begin to capture how adorable that little ball of fuzz with two coal-black eyes staring at me was. I wish you could have seen it.

There were two fledgling owls when I first came upon this pool, but when I tried to get a bit closer one flew away. This was the best I could do. As soon as I took another step closer, this one too flew up into a tree.

Since we most commonly see barred owls, I assumed that's what this was. I didn't stop to think about how big even this baby bird was. But then I heard some commotion high up in a tree to my left and saw one of its parents.

Sadly, this is another crop of a pic that wasn't that good to begin with. But do you see the large tufts on the top of that owl's head? It's a great horned owl--the first one I have ever seen in the wild.